Louis-Adolphe HERVIER (Paris, 1818 - 1879) Barricade: Faubourg Saint-Jacques, exhibition of corpses, 1848 Watercolor, pen and brown ink. Signed and localized in pen and brown ink in the upper left corner: "HERVIER - Paris". Monogrammed and titled in pen and brown ink in the lower right: "Exposition des insurgés près de l'Hospice du midi Juin 1848". Localized in pen and brown ink at the top right: "faubourg St Jacques près de Val de Grace". Annotated in pen and brown ink at the bottom left: "made of memory at my place rue St Honoré .......". 8,2 x 13,6 cm Provenance: - Sale, Watercolors and drawings by Hervier, Me Tual, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 6, 1876, n°83. - Georges Bardon (1846-1913). - His sale, Mes Albinet et Rostand, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, July 5, 1919, part of n°40. - Annie Bauduin, wife Stalter, specialist of the artist. Entitled The Barricade, dated and located "June 1848, Paris," our panel depicts the bloody carnage caused by the artillery salvos of the National Guard: on a pile of cobblestones and other debris, broken and twisted bodies were violently thrown in all directions. While the inscription and the attention to detail suggest direct observation, the composition reveals a desire for idealization. Our preparatory watercolor (lot 242) provides insight into the development and context of this work. The watercolor is inscribed with the day and time of the event depicted - June 24 at 6 o'clock in the evening - and with the location, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the traditional cradle of the Parisian popular revolutions and the last bastion of insurrection to fall on June 26. Unlike the final work, it emphasizes above all the "sad memory" of the corpses, with a tighter framing, leaving out the background details and the effects of smoke and dust; all elements that will be added by Hervier to form a monumental and macabre setting, of which the red flag in tatters, proudly stuck in an old barrel, gives all the meaning. This red flag, which appeared during the Revolution, became one of the main symbols of the barricades of February 1848. The fact of treating a contemporary event is very unusual for Hervier. In this suite around June 1848, there is also a drawing preserved in the Legion of Honor, San Francisco and another watercolor (lot 241), representing the Exposition des insurgés: seven bodies probably taken from the barricades and frozen in strange positions by rigor mortis, are lined up along a wall of the Hospice du Midi, Faubourg Saint-Antoine. This work is a rare testimony to the human consequences of the repression of the June barricades. This series, a true "unicum" in Hervier's work, testifies to the political convictions of the artist of whom Roger Marx said that he had "lived in close communion with the popular soul.